The final remarks concerning the deficiencies of the plenum resolution must be directed at the introductory words to the first point, which state: "In development of the fundamental propositions of the resolutions of the party conference of 1908, the Central Committee resolves…" Such a formulation is the result of a concession to the Mensheviks, and we must dwell on this circumstance all the more since we again have here an example of a flagrantly disloyal attitude toward a concession or of flagrant incapacity to understand the significance of party determinations of tactics.

In the draft resolution, approved by the majority of the commission and consequently assured of a majority vote at the plenum, it stated: "in confirmation of the resolutions of December 1908 and in development of them…". The Mensheviks here again made an ultimatum demand for a concession, refusing to vote for the resolution as a whole if the words "in confirmation" remained, because they considered the December 1908 resolutions the height of "factionalism." We made the required concession, without refusing to vote for the resolution without the words about confirmation. I would not be at all inclined to regret this concession if it had achieved its purpose, i.e., if it had met with that loyal attitude of the Mensheviks toward the party decision without which joint work is impossible. Our party has no other determination of its fundamental tasks of tactics, organization, and Duma work during the period of the Third Duma except in the December 1908 resolutions. Not denying that factional struggle was very intense at that time, we shall not insist on this or that sharp word of the resolutions of that time directed against the liquidators. But on their fundamental propositions we insist unconditionally, for to speak of the party, of partisanship, of party organization—would mean uttering great words in vain if we were to brush aside the sole answer given by the party and confirmed by a year of work to the most important, fundamental questions, without answers to which one cannot take a single step either in propaganda, or in agitation, or in organization. We are entirely prepared to recognize the necessity of joint work on correcting these resolutions, of reviewing them in accordance with the criticism of comrades of all fractions and of party Mensheviks as well, of course; we know that certain propositions of these resolutions will probably remain disputed in the party for quite a long time, and they cannot be settled otherwise than by majority vote in the near future. But, until this review is undertaken and completed, until the party has given a new answer to the question of evaluating the Third Duma period and the tasks arising from it, we absolutely demand that all party social-democrats, whatever views they may hold, be guided in their actions by precisely these resolutions.

This would seem to be the alphabet of partisanship? It would seem that no other attitude toward party decisions could exist? But the turn toward liquidationism made by the *Voice* after the plenum caused it to use the majority party's concession on this question as well, not for a transition to a loyal party position, but for an immediate declaration of its dissatisfaction with the extent of the concession! (The Voice people apparently forgot only that whoever first raises a dispute over a compromise resolution unanimously adopted, declaring dissatisfaction with it and demanding new concessions, new corrections, thereby gives the other side the right to demand corrections in the opposite direction. And we shall, of course, make use of this right.)

The editorial article of the *Voice*, nos. 19–20, which I have already cited, concerning the plenum's conclusions immediately declares that the introductory words to the resolution are a compromise. This is true, but becomes false when one remains silent about the fact that the compromise which the Menshevik ultimatum forced on the majority of the Central Committee was the renunciation of direct confirmation of all the December 1908 resolutions, and not only their fundamental propositions!

"From our point of view," the *Voice* continues, "this phrase fits very poorly with the unambiguous content of the most important points of the resolution, signifying a certain turning point in party development; it is nevertheless, of course, in continuity with the entire past of Russian social-democracy, but least of all" (!!) "is it connected precisely with 'the London heritage'{108}. However, we would be incorrigible doctrinaires if we thought we could achieve absolute unanimity in our party with one blow, if we sacrificed a major step forward in the movement for localism" (!!). "We can leave the correction of these errors in the resolution to historians."

This sounds as if the Voice people who were at the plenum received a dressing-down for their "yielding to the Bolsheviks" from their Russian legalists, like Potresov and Co., or from the editors of the *Voice* who were not at the plenum, and as though they were apologizing to them. We are not doctrinaires, let the historians correct the errors in the resolution!

We venture to remark on this magnificent declaration that party social-democrats draw up resolutions not for historians, but in order to be guided by these resolutions in actual work of propaganda, agitation, organization. There is no other determination of the tasks of this work for the Third Duma period in the party. For liquidators, party resolutions are of course—nothing, for for them the entire party is nothing; for them only "historians" can occupy themselves profitably and with interest in the whole party (and not only in its resolutions). But neither the Bolsheviks nor the party Mensheviks want to work and will not work with the liquidators in a single organization. We shall ask the liquidators to go to the *bezgolovy*{109} or to the *S.R.s*{110}.

If the Voice people had a loyal attitude toward the party, if they actually reckoned with the party and not with Potresov and Co., with the organization of revolutionary social-democrats and not with a circle of legalist-literati, then they would have expressed their dissatisfaction with the December 1908 resolutions differently. They would precisely now, after the plenum, have cast aside the unseemly, only proper to the Cadets, contemptuous snickering about some "underground" "decisions." They would have set about a businesslike analysis of these decisions and their correction in accordance with their point of view, in accordance with their view of the experience of 1907–1910. That would be work for genuine party unification, for coming together on a single line of social-democratic activity. By refusing to do this, the Voice people in fact carry out precisely the liquidators' program. Indeed, what is the liquidators' program on this question? Their program consists in ignoring the decisions of an underground party, condemned to destruction, etc., counterposing to the party's decisions the amorphous "work" of free-lances calling themselves social-democrats and settled, interspersed with liberals, populists, and headless ones, in various legal journals, legal societies, etc. No need for any resolutions, any "evaluation of the moment," any determination of our immediate aims of struggle and our attitude toward bourgeois parties—we call all this (following Milyukov!) the "dictatorship of closed underground circles" (not noticing that through our formlessness, disorganization, fragmentation we actually surrender "dictatorship" to liberal circles!).

Yes, yes, it is indubitable that the liquidators can demand nothing else from the Voice people on the question of attitude toward party resolutions except contemptuous mockery and ignoring them.

It is impossible to seriously discuss the view that the Central Committee resolution on the state of affairs in the party in 1909–1910 is "least of all" connected with the London heritage, because the absurdity of this view is obvious. They mock the party, saying: we are prepared to reckon "with all its past," but not with that past which is directly connected with the present, and not with the present itself! In other words: we are prepared to reckon with that which does not determine our present behavior. We are prepared (in 1910) to reckon "with all the past" of social-democracy, except that past which contains decisions about the Cadet party of the 1907–1908–1909 period, about the Labour parties of the 1907–1908–1909 period, about the tasks of struggle of the 1907–1908–1909 period. We are prepared to reckon with everything except that with which we must reckon in order to be a party member in fact now, to conduct party work, to conduct party tactics, to direct in a party manner the Third Duma social-democratic activity. The Bund must be said to give in its organ a place to the same liquidationist mockeries of the London heritage in an article by comrade Ionov (p. 22). "Tell me, if you please," writes Ionov, "what relation do the resolutions of the London Congress bear to the present moment and the questions now on the agenda? I venture to hope that this comrade Lenin with all his associates do not know."

Well, how should I know such a wise thing! How should I know that there has been no essential change in the basic groups of bourgeois parties (the Black Hundreds, Octobrists, Cadets, Populists), in their class composition, in their politics, in their attitude toward the proletariat and toward revolution from spring 1907 to spring 1910? How should I know that the small particular changes that can and should be noted in this area are indicated in the December 1908 resolutions? How should I know all this?

For Ionov, all this apparently has no relation to the present moment and the questions on the agenda. For him it is superfluous, some sort of party determination of tactics with respect to non-proletarian parties. Why burden oneself? Is it not simpler to brand this striving to work out a party determination of proletarian tactics as "intensified guardianship," etc.? Is it not simpler to turn social-democrats into free-lances, into wild men, who will "freely," without any "intensified guardianship," decide the questions on the agenda—today together with liberals in the journal *Our Slops*, tomorrow with the headless ones at a congress of literary hangers-on, the day after tomorrow with Possians in a cooperative{111}. Only… only, my dear cow of god, how would this differ from what the legalist-liquidators are striving for? Not in the slightest!

Party social-democrats who are dissatisfied with the London decisions or the December 1908 resolutions and who want to work in the party, in a party manner, will criticize these resolutions in party publications, will propose amendments, persuade comrades, win a majority in the party for themselves. With such people we can disagree, but their attitude toward the matter will be party-oriented; they will not be helping the discord, as Ionov, the *Voice*, and Co. help it.

Just look at Mr. Potresov.

This "social-democrat," demonstrating to the public his independence from the social-democratic party, exclaims in *Our Dawn*, no. 2, p. 59: "And how many of them, these questions, without resolving which one cannot take a single step, without which Russian Marxism cannot be an intellectual current truly absorbing into itself all the energy and force" (could we have fewer phrases, my dear independent!) "of the revolutionary consciousness of the epoch! How is Russia's economic development proceeding, what displacement of productive forces does it produce under the cover of reaction, what is happening in the countryside and in the city, what changes does this development bring to the social composition of the Russian working class, etc. and so on? Where are the answers or the beginning of answers to these questions, where is the economic school of Russian Marxism? And what has become of the political work of thought, which Menshevism once lived by? With its organizational searching, with its analysis of the past, with its evaluation of the present?"

If this independent fellow did not waste tortured phrases on thin air but truly thought about what he was saying, he would see a very simple thing. If it really is impossible to take a single step for a revolutionary Marxist without resolving these questions (and this is true), then their resolution—not in the sense of scientific completeness, scientific research, but in the sense of determining what steps and how they ought to be taken—their resolution must be the concern of the social-democratic party. For "revolutionary Marxism" outside the social-democratic party is simply the drawing-room phrase of a legal chatterbox who wants sometimes to boast that "we too" are almost social-democrats. The social-democratic party has made a beginning of answering the indicated questions, and made it precisely in the December 1908 resolutions.

The independents have arranged things cleverly enough: in legal publications they beat their breasts and ask, "where is the beginning of answers from revolutionary Marxists?" The independents know that in legal publications they cannot answer. And in illegal publications the friends of these independents (the Voice people) contemptuously brush aside the answers to questions "without resolving which one cannot take a single step." Everything is achieved that is needed by the independents (i.e., by the renegades of socialism) all over the world: a ringing phrase is in evidence, de facto independence from socialism and from the social-democratic party is also in evidence.